Responses to Woven in Govan

Fablevision’s Clarion Call to Community Culture

Woven in Govan Exhibition wins Plaudits from Scotland’s First Minister

Woven in Govan at the Kinning Park Complex

Care’s Collective Quality

In April 2021 artist Alex Wilde and Ailie Rutherford met with six inspirational
women working in care roles and for social change in Govan as part of the Fablevision project, Wovan in Govan, which in turns was part of a wider collaboration involving cultural organisations in Sweden (Intercult) and Ukraine (TU Mariupol).

We talked with women about formal and informal care, paid and unpaid labour and personal reflections on how we care for each other, our communities and our society.  These women are passionate about the communities of people they support and are involved with; in hospitals, community gardens, social justice projects and housing campaigns.

Reflecting after a year of Covid “lockdown” where our usual methods of
collective caring have been taken away,  we wanted to know how
these women; activists and carers had adapted in the face of deepening
inequalities, social separation and collective anxiety.  At a time when “care” has never been more widely discussed, what existing networks of community care have endured and what new models of care are emerging?

We were interested in exploring the intersection of care and activism and understand how women were working towards social change.  We talked about how would we would like care to be valued and organised
differently, and what new ways of organising we need now for a better reciprocal system of care.  How do we care better for each other, ourselves and beyond our familial or romantic bubbles?  And thought about the new systems, networks and ideologies we need now to do this work.

The conversations we had with the women and each other, made us feel like we need to explode the idea of the family unit and abandon the idea of monogamous care in order to implement care for our wider world and communities.  We felt a great sense of urgency to change an uncaring system, which continuously expects women to fill in the gaps.  Drawing on our own experiences and listening to the experiences of women who live and work in Govan involved in collective care, caring far beyond their immediate bubbles, a set of ideologies and demands evolved for centering a post pandemic recovery on care. The resulting diagram (a visual manifesto) pull together some of the key themes and ideas we discussed with the women we interviewed, turning them into demands for change.  Our simple diagram could never convey the depth and richness of each conversation but we hope it goes some way to highlighting the incredible work and vibrant intellect of the women who so generously gave their time to these conversations.

This manifesto has been created in a short space of time, with physical distancing challenging our usual methods of a socially engaged practice. It is raw and imperfect but reflects the urgency of the need for change.

Art for Health’s Sake

A recent article in Glasgow’s Evening Times featured the work of Jackie Sands, Health Improvement Senior: Arts and Health for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.  

The rationale for the use of art in such a context, as the article points out, has quite a long history.  However, there is one thing paying lip service to such ideas, there is quite another bringing the means, the artists, the patients and the public together in order for it to happen.  Well, that’s exactly what Sands has done. 

Working at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital [QEUH], Sands’ therapeutic and arts-based interface has seen the installation of a piano, thanks to Piano City,  sculpture placement which involved, the Sculpture Placement Group, performance from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Govan Songsters and DJ George Bowie, and art installations, such as those in which Fablevision was/is directly involved, namely, the Memory of Water and Woven Network.